Policy's side effect

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-11 07:45

An otherwise good policy could turn out to be problematic if implemented without adequate thought being given to its side effects. To let all teachers not on government payroll gradually quit and qualified ones fill their places is such a policy initiated in 2006.

It was absolutely necessary for the Ministry of Education to adopt such a policy in 2006 in order to improve the overall quality of compulsory nine-year education. The fact that tens of thousands of primary school teachers in remote rural areas themselves never received adequate training justified the policy. But the question of where these teachers known as daike jiaoshi (teachers not on government payroll) are to go puts the policy in question and even under attack.

In the past two years, more than 200,000 such teachers have either been placed on the government payroll after having passed designated exams or have been dismissed. There are more than 200,000 still on the job and waiting to obtain the position of certified teachers on government payroll or to be told to leave the profession forever.

It is absolutely unfair for an uncertified teacher, who has taught for several decades, to be dismissed after being paid several hundred yuan in compensation, even if the certified replacement is indeed more competent.

Quite a number of such uncertified teachers were made to teach because of the paucity of qualified teachers in those remote and impoverished rural areas. If they gave up their job, the children in these local villages would have no education to receive. They were underpaid for many years and their salaries were way lower than those of their certified counterparts, and even now remain much lower.

Take the case of Wang Zhenming. A veteran uncertified teacher who founded the school in his village in northwest China's Gansu province in 1958, he has taught there ever since. He was dismissed in the early 1980s, but soon invited back to teach because of lack of teachers. During the past 48 years, 80 of the children he taught have graduated from universities. But he was paid 800 yuan ($117) in compensation and dismissed in 2006.

Obviously the government ought to be indebted to him for his contribution. The negligible compensation of 800 yuan betrays gross inconsideration on the part of the government, especially in the implementation of this policy.

Xu Yunling, an uncertified teacher, still teaches in a poverty-stricken village in central China's Henan province. She has taught there for 23 years and now earns 100 yuan a month. She and her husband built the two classrooms on their own. Sooner or later, she will be dismissed, according to the policy.

The issue is whether certified teachers would be willing to teach in the schools in remote and poor areas. And, if they are not, those uncertified teachers will have to be retained in their positions as teachers, but not on government payroll.

There is nothing wrong with the policy as such. But it is high time that something was done for its effective implementation. That includes handsome payment as compensation to those who have taught poor children for many years on the government's behalf without being on its payroll, and certifying the uncertified teachers who still have to teach.

(China Daily 09/11/2009 page8)